Cleopatra’s Daughter

“You can weep, but it won’t bring them back,” he said cruelly. “Kingdoms rise and fall on whims of the gods.”

“Isis has never turned her back on Egypt! She will bring me home.”

Juba’s voice grew threatening. “I would be very careful where I said that, Princess.”

But I raised my chin, determined not to be afraid. “I know about you. Julius Caesar killed your own mother and brother. But I’ll never bow to Rome.”

“How very brave.” Juba’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “Perhaps you’ll feel differently after the Triumph.”

I spun around and crossed the library. But before I left, I glimpsed the basalt statue my brother had seen of Petubastes. The priest’s face was beautiful even in stone, and a hastily chiseled inscription indicated the day of his death at sixteen years old. When I reached out to touch it, I glanced back and saw Juba watching me, then thought better of it and walked away.

Inside our cabin, Alexander was pacing.

“Where have you been?” he cried.

“In the library.”

“Well, I’ve been looking for you.” I followed his gaze to the bed. Ptolemy was a sickly color. He lay between the cushions, hardly moving. “He’s burning even hotter than before.”

“Then we must find the ship’s physician!”

“He already came.”

When my brother didn’t add anything more, I felt my chest constrict. “And?”

Alexander remained silent.

“And what did he say?” When Alexander only shook his head, I rushed to Ptolemy’s side. “Ptolemy,” I whispered, pushing his hair away from his brow. He was as hot as Alexander had said. Slowly he opened one of his pale blue eyes.

“Selene.” He reached out and placed his small hand in mine; the tears ran hot down my cheeks onto his palm.

For the next three days Alexander and I kept a constant vigil at Ptolemy’s bed. When Octavian took his meals in the courtyard, we didn’t join him. When the sailors spotted dolphins alongside the ship and pronounced it a good omen, we didn’t go to see. The three of us were the last of the Ptolemies. We had nothing more in the world than each other.

Several times a day, Agrippa brought trays of fruit, and once, when the physician said there was no hope, Agrippa found a slave in the galleys who had studied medicine in his native Macedonia.

“Caesar wants all three children alive for his Triumph,” Agrippa explained. “I will give you a hundred talents to cure him.” But even for the price that would buy his own freedom, there was nothing the Macedonian could do. Frustrated, Agrippa shoved a bag of gold at the man. “Take it!” he said angrily.

“But I can’t heal him, Domine.” He used the Latin word for “master,” and I could see he was afraid. “He’s too sick.”

“Then just take it and go!”

The man left the cabin before Agrippa could change his mind, and I buried my face in my hands.

“You will keep the door closed,” Agrippa said. “Caesar sickens easily. We must move the two of you to a different cabin.” But even though Alexander and I protested at this, Agrippa was firm. “Caesar wants you alive.”

In the end, it didn’t matter. Before a new cabin could be found near the royal courtyard, Ptolemy began to moan. I pressed his little hand in mine, and whenever the pain was too great, he bunched his fingers into a fist, squeezing his eyes shut as if he could squeeze out the world. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t even drink, and by morning his small body lay rigid on the silk sheets of the bed.

“Ptolemy,” I whispered when he didn’t move. “Ptolemy!” I cried.

Alexander shook him. “Wake up! Ptolemy, we’re almost there. Wake up!” But even such a lie wouldn’t open his eyes. Although Alexander began to weep, I was too numb to cry. Perhaps the Ptolemies had angered the gods. Perhaps Juba was correct, and we would all die by Fortune’s whims.

I smoothed my little brother’s hair from his brow, then opened his fingers so they could finally relax. “My little prince,” I whispered.

But my brother stood up from Ptolemy’s bed in a rage. “What have we done? Why are the gods punishing our family like this?”

“Shh!” I said sharply. “Give him some peace! He heard enough anger in life.”

Alexander sank to the bed and put his face in his hands. “Why?”

I didn’t have an answer.

When the news was sent to Octavian, the Macedonian slave returned to collect Ptolemy’s body for a burial at sea. But Alexander stood guard in front of the bed.

“Only murderers are buried at sea!” he cried.

“I’m sorry, Domine, but these are orders from Caesar himself.”

“Then tell him no!” my brother shouted.

Agrippa appeared, and the Macedonian shook his head. “They want to keep the body.”

Agrippa stared at my brother. “We have many days left at sea, and no embalming materials to keep his body fresh. Let your brother rest with Neptune, Alexander.”

While the Macedonian wrapped Ptolemy in the sheets of his bed, I strained to see his golden head one last time, and the little lips that had so often trembled in fear. He’d been a timid child, and my mother’s favorite after Caesarion. I should have looked after him better, I thought. He was too young to survive so much upheaval.

We followed the slave into the crisp morning air, then through the royal courtyard to the side of the ship. All the important members of Caesar’s retinue were gathered. A priest of Apollo said several words in prayer, and each face was solemn, even Octavian’s. I held on to Alexander’s arm to keep myself from collapsing on the deck. And when the Macedonian dropped the tiny body into the sea, my brother dashed to the railing. “Ptolemy!” he cried desperately. “Ptolemy!” Agrippa held him back.

“Take him to the courtyard,” he instructed. “Find him some food and good Chian wine.” Several men escorted my brother away, but I remained on the deck, letting my hair whip in the wind, too tired to push it away.

He hadn’t even been given a decent burial. The blood of Alexander the Great and Marc Antony had run through his veins, and he’d been tossed into the sea like a criminal. But what better fate lay ahead for Alexander and me? Octavian had said he would keep us alive, but if he’d lied to the Queen of Egypt about leaving for Rome in three days instead of eleven months, what would stop him from lying to us? He was never going to parade my mother through Rome. I knew now that Caesar had tried it with Arsinoe, and instead of cheering, the people had revolted. They were shocked by such treatment of a woman, and the sister of the Queen of Egypt, no less. My mother had never faced any future but imminent death, and if Octavian hadn’t fooled her into taking her own life, he would have found someone to kill her. And once his Triumph in Rome was finished, why should our future be any different?

I thought of the many terrible ways there were to die, and wondered if Ptolemy had escaped worse pain. I put my hand on the polished rail. With one jump, there would be no more tears, no more loneliness.

“I wouldn’t think it, Princess.”

My back tensed. I had thought everyone had left, but I spun around to face Juba. In his vermilion toga, he looked more regal than Octavian in his homemade tunics and broad-brimmed hats.

“Have you ever seen the body of a drowned man?” he asked. “It swells five, even six times its size, then turns black until the skin peels away.”

My knuckles grew white as I gripped the rail.

“Do you want to end up as a bloated corpse abandoned at sea?”

“Better than a corpse abandoned in Caesar’s prison!” But I turned from the railing and Juba got what he wished for. Alexander and I would be alive for Octavian’s Triumph.

CHAPTER FOUR